There's an interesting challenge in writing a good book about programming. At a certain point, you'll lose the newbies and alienate the technical. Below the line is a safe introductory book, above it is aimed at a smaller crowd. We had an opportunity review No Starch Press' Object-Oriented PHP, and found it fits nicely into the gap. 
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Member since:2005-07-06
I agree. I read this book and found it pleasantly surprising and easy to understand. It also covers utilities "that help you document, manage, test, and build your PHP applications, including Phing, PHPUnit2, phpDocumentor, PEAR, and CVS." (from the back cover)
Here is more information:
Title: PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice
Author: Matt Zandstra
Publisher: Apress
ISBN: 1-59059-380-4
Check it out if you are serious. I highly recommend this book if you want to move from procedural programming in PHP4 to the object oriented programming afforded in PHP5.
And please, don't forget to pickup/research the topics of PHP security as well. Your code is only as secure as you make it.
Member since:2006-03-12
Though i haven't read it, i'm inclined to agree.
Having a good book go not only thru OO but how it relates to design patterns (and vice-versa) with some practical examples is a MUST for anyone wanting to go from the "relatively newbie" to designing real structured apps.
OO by itself is nice, but IMHO you can still do "spaghetti" code if you don't get the real essence of it - wich is why i believe design patterns is a must-have.
Member since:
2006-09-10
PHP Objects Patterns and Practice, which is the perfect book to shunt your PHP newbie up into some more grown up techniques. It includes OO, some useful core patterns, and basic introductions to things like source control, unit testing and build tools.
http://tinyurl.com/ezcqp (amazon.co.uk)